Monsters In My Mind
by calicoskies4ever
Summary: House finds Wilson hiding in a dark closet and soon comes to understand that his friend has some serious problems. AU OOC references to child abuse slash and alien abductions. More to come soon.


I first found out about Jimmy's episodes, when he stayed at my place after Julie dumped him. I came home one afternoon and I could smell the burning food from out in the corridor. I heard the TV was playing loudly, but there was no light coming from under my front door. I discovered that someone—probably Wilson—had strung up a bunch of empty soda cans on a string and tied it to the doorway. Unfortunately I didn't see them—because it was so dark—until after I tripped over the thing. It took a while to get up in the dark, but I didn't care about my leg because I was now even more worried about Wilson. Darkness and burnt food could mean a lot of things. Maybe he had a migraine and needed to turn off the lights and "sleep" but hadn't thought to stop cooking dinner. But a booby trap... This was not normal behavior for him. For anyone.

And he wouldn't try to pull the same prank twice in one week. He didn't set that trap for me, and since it was my apartment and no one else came here, he was most likely trying to trap someone who only existed in his mind. Wilson was a little old to just beginning to display symptoms of a major mental illness—though it wasn't impossible for a forty-year-old to develop something—but he did have a brother with schizophrenia, and behavior like this…well it wasn't exactly healthy. When I turned on the lights, I saw him curled up in a fetal ball under the coffee table. I knew better than to sneak up on a possibly psychotic person. So, I moved as quietly as my cane and throbbing leg would allow.

"Hey, Wilson," I called out, being sort of quiet. "You ruined dinner." He flinched at the sound of my voice. "Jimmy, it's okay. It's just me. It's just House."

"House," he whimpered, and rolled to face me. I smiled. "I thought you were," Wilson started to say but then the rational part of his brain switched on and he realized how he looked. "I have panic attacks sometimes. I must have been in the middle of one when you walked in." He stood up, brushed himself off, and went into the kitchen.

"Okay, that explains the crying on the floor part but what's with the trip-line? Are you trying to kill me? If that is the case you might want to pick something that can pass off as a 'heat of the moment' thing. If I trip and break my neck or something obviously planned and carefully thought out, they might charge you with a hate crime on account of my being a cripple." He actually laughed, which was a really bad sign. Wilson didn't laugh at my jokes. Sometimes he'd smile if he liked one, or use a fake laugh to show me how unfunny he found something but he didn't actually laugh. Not like that. Not with me.

"I don't really remember anything I did today. Sometimes when I freak out, I forget things. It won't happen again. Sorry, House." I wanted to know more, wanted to help him but Wilson refused to discus it further. He did the robot thing, pretending that he didn't' feel anything, ever. I decided to keep a closer eye on him, and investigate his problem on my own but he moved out a week later. After a while, I convinced myself that there had been a rational explanation for what he'd done, even the strung-up cans.

When I moved in with Jimmy, after I got out of Mayfield, one of the thing I was really worried about (besides the possibility of losing my mind again, and wondering what I would do next) was that I might once again come home to find my best friend hiding in the dark, having set traps for imaginary monsters.

XX

Today, I knew what was going on the second I entered the lobby. I couldn't actually see or hear inside our apartment but I could sense—emotionally I guess—that something was wrong. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I got real goose bumps, before I even went inside. Our favorite neighbor was getting her mail and—just my luck—Nora didn't run and hide the moment she saw me.

"Did you see Wilson today," I asked, opening and looking in our box. She shrugged. "I'm just…he gets weird sometimes. I don't wanna walk in on…never mind," I cut myself off. There was no way to explain the thing I was worried about without sounding like a freak.

"Well, now that you mention it, he came by a little while ago and asked to borrow some tinfoil. He looked a little…spooked. It was sot of strange, actually," she added. "He's never been rude to me before, not outright, like that." I nodded and raced off. I'm pretty sure she continued to talk, not realizing I'd started to hobble away, but I didn't hear a word of it.

Once again our place was pitch black, save for the little bit of light coming of the flat screen. This time he'd even gone to the trouble of covering the windows with Duct-tape and Reynolds Wrap. _Crap, _I thought, _he's actually lost it. _This time there wasn't anything on the stove, which was good but also bad. At least now I didn't have to worry about the condo burning down. However, last time I'd been so distracted by the nasty food smell that I hadn't noticed the other thing. Assuming it was there last time too. I found Wilson in the corner of his bedroom closet. Today the room stank of piss. Jimmy cowered as he saw my hands coming towards him. _Maybe he was abused, _I thought. _He was molested as a little kid, it seriously screwed him up, and now the guy freaks out sometimes and thinks the creep is still coming after him._

"Wilson," I whispered, carefully lowering myself and crawling to his side. He stared at me like a helpless child. "It's House again. We're safe here; you're safe. We're just two guys hanging out in the dark, hiding in the closet," I chuckled. He didn't appreciate the irony. His face showed no sign that he'd even heard what I said. "I uh…I like what you did to the windows. No way the CIA can monitor our conversations now." He looked at me like I was the crazy one. "Sorry. I make bad jokes sometimes."

"They came back," he cried in a sad little boy's voice. I lay my palm onto his shoulder. Wilson leaned into the touch.

"Who came back, Jimmy?" He refused to say. "Well, that doesn't matter. Whoever it is, I won't let them hurt you." _I have to get him to come with me willingly, _I thought. _Even in this condition, he'd probably still kick my ass. _"Hey, wanna get out and grab some ice cream?" He sniffled, but climbed out of the closet anyway. "Can you at least tell me what the tinfoil is for?"

"I would but you'll make fun of me." I knew it was going to be difficult for me to control myself, despite how scared I was. In fact my concern was more likely to cause me to make sarcastic remarks. I knew I had to try my hardest, because Wilson had done everything in the world for me when I needed it. Now I had to return the favor.

"I promise. I will try really hard to keep my sarcastic comments to the minimum." He nodded but still kept his mouth shut. "It's okay, Jimmy. I can be good when I have to. This is one of those times."

"The aliens," he whispered so quietly and with so much sincerity that I actually thought this whole thing could be an elaborate prank. "They keep coming back. They keep hurting me," Wilson explained, small and sad. "Today, I was laying on the sofa, with a really bad headache—I always know when they are coming, 'cuz I get a migraine before—and I saw this pulsing yellow and blue light coming in from the windows. It made the whole room look like a high school dance. I could feel myself being lifted up and—look, I know how it sounds, but this really did happen! I was abducted. Again," he whispered.

"I believe you, Jimmy," I said, rubbing his back, but in my mind, I was already scrolling through the names of all the shrinks I had met at work, and Mayfield, or who I'd met through Wilson, as well as through any other "friends" from medical school or whatever. Paranoia + hallucinations + delusions + no history of drug use past or present + feelings of persecution. It didn't take a genius to figure this out. Of course, a real therapist would need to diagnose him but he had what his baby brother had "Tell me more."

"There are three of them, all just under four-feet-tall and gray, I mean their skin is gray, with humongous black eyes that look like dark caves and they don't have no hair," he explained, becoming even more like a five or six-year-old. "I looked down and I was floating out the window, into the light. Then I was on this cold, metal table. They put a needle in me here," he said, pointing to his neck. "It looked like a needle, and sucked something out…I don't…I'm not bleeding and there are no marks so it couldn't of been blood and I—I," he stammered. "I don't really remember everything but it smelled like cherries."

Wilson's eyes pinched shut. He started to hyperventilate. I made the poor guy stop his story and hugged him, and after a while of sitting there in my arms, he started to seem perfectly normal again. Until he opened his mouth once more. "The next thing I remember I was hanging by my feet, only I didn't have any skin on." A couple little tears slid down his cheeks but he regained control over most of his body. I pulled him into my lap and kissed his hair.

"It's okay, Baby. I'm here now, and I won't let them take you away again, or skin you, or put things inside your or hurt you in any other way," I swore. "They won't get in here ever again. I got monster repellant—sorry, I couldn't stop myself, I'm finished now—and it is okay. They still aren't getting in here."

"I know," he replied, smirking a little. "I covered up the windows. They can suck you out through even the tiniest cracks in between the glass and the wall but if there aren't any cracks or anything, then the vacuum thingy doesn't work." I nodded, but pushed him on to his feet so we could walk to the bed.

"We're gonna lie down and take a little nap and then I'm gonna call—I'm gonna get someone over here to help us out," I explained but what I actually meant, was "I'm going to give you something to knock you out so I can call up the men with the butterfly nets to take you away." Wilson burst into tears; seriously his whole body all but exploded from crying.

"You think I'm crazy," he whimpered. "A nut job, one fry short of a happy meal, a few bricks short of a load…Look, House; I know how it sounds. That's why I never told you about _them_ before. It's been happening since I was a little kid but it's not a constant thing. They come and come and then they go away for a while, and then they come back. If I was a Schizophrenic like Danny, then how did I get through medical school? How did I become a department head in a major metropolitan hospital? If I was sick, I wouldn't be able to function. Like I said, I'm only like this some of the time". I sighed, covering my mouth so he wouldn't be able to see the disparaging look. I didn't want the poor guy to know how I really felt, it would make him more difficult to handle.

"I know there's a chance that you could be right but what if you're not..." I paused, gathering my thoughts. Even I didn't have an answer for _this. _What if you do have it?" Jimmy rubbed the back of his hand against his lips. "If I indulged your…if I pretended everything was fine and you were sick, and you had an episode at work or when we were out shopping, you could hurt somebody."

"Well yeah, but," he started to say but something changed in his voice. "Maybe…What if I'm right? I could be right. You can't know 100% either way." I sighed and responded as kindly as possible.

"Jimmy, I know how scared you are. I understand. I was where you are just a few months back. When I was hallucinating Amber, I saw…it seemed completely real. If she hadn't been…and the thing with Cuddy, I thought she and I really had spent the night together." Jimmy silently stared in my direction. "Talk to the doctor, we see what they say, and if the therapist says that you are right and I'm over reacting, I'll figure out a way to be with you and protect you from the aliens at all times. But if you talk to the doctor and he says you need to go on anti-psychotics, will you at least give them a try?"

I sat down slowly as Wilson curled up in a ball on the bed. He nodded. "If you _are_ sick, I'm gonna quit my job, or at least take some time off to help you get everything figured out, and stay with/ take care of/ protect you. Oh and if you tell anyone I'm this nice to you, I'll take the duct tape off the windows, get the aliens to show up, and make a deal to hand you over in return for them letting me have a scrawny, dying alien to do an autopsy on. Then, I'll get a Nobel prize for proving their existence. Might even cure a couple diseases using something form inside the body or whatever." He smiled nervously and promised to be good. "Relax, I wouldn't do that. I'd probably just ship you one way to some lousy mental hospital."

"I'm so _lucky _to have a friend like you," he sneered, but still laughed a little bit. "You're right. It does seem real. I mean, even though I'm a going to talk to the psychiatrist, part of me, a big part of me—and I consider myself a fairly rational person even now—still thinks that what happened today really happened, that there are aliens out there who have been chasing after and torturing me on and off for decades," he explained. Jimmy was the only person who had ever really given a damn about me; even the sex stuff hadn't clouded our friendship. He's been there every single time I have ever needed him, to do absolutely everything I have ever needed from the guy. I hated to make him believe he was hallucinating but aliens do not exist.

Me pretending otherwise would only cause trouble and be potentially dangerous. If Wilson had another incident thought someone was an alien… Who knows what he might do to them? Then, he'd get locked up someplace and I wouldn't be able to help him, or lay next to him in bed and listen to his heart beating (okay that one's for me) or do anything for either one of us. I almost wished I could believe in extra-terrestrials. I didn't want to live in a world where the healthiest person I knew had become a raving lunatic. I loved him. I relied on him. And he was the one I went to when I was feeling stressed or crazy or whatever.

Now, my best friend probably had schizophrenia and I would finally get to see the disease up close and personal. Part of me was horrified and deeply saddened and yet it was also sort of cool. As difficult as that is for me to admit. It was almost as exciting as it would have been if I'd been able to experience it (not permanently of course) for myself, and yet all I wanted to do was find god—_what God?_—and beg him to make Jimmy normal again. Well, not normal. He was a messed up freak before, but he was the kind of messed up freak that could still take care of me, the kind of messed up freak who could love me. That was who I wanted to get back. The man I fell in love with.

I loved him no matter what, but this was going to be hard. Worst kind of shit in the world. I was losing the only person (or thing for that matter) who made life seem manageable. "Promise me that everything is going to be okay?"

"I would but you'd never believe me," I said, and picked up the phone to make some calls so I could institutionalize my best friend.


End file.
